This Blessed Plot, This Earth, This Realm 2: Pesach

The day after Jerusalem, we headed down to the desert. Here’s the back-story- from what I understand, someone brought up the idea of recreating Passover in the desert. Although it started as a joke, it became more and more of a reality. Karen and Amir kind of spear-headed the entire thing, booking the place out in the desert, organizing everybody’s jobs for the two days and assigning parts for us to read while we acted out the story. Fastforward to Passover “eve” and we were loading up vans and heading down to a place called Heart of the Desert, down in the Arava.

We picked up Maya at the bus station in Beer Sheva and then headed down, driving past a Dead Sea overlook and the road towards Masada. The “campsite” had five large domed tents that had ceiling fans as well as mattresses on the ground with bedding. There was a closed off building with a fridge and air conditioning, with more mattresses on the floor as seats, a building with bathrooms and showers and then the outdoor area with an outdoor kitchen, tables, mini-pool, low couches and tables and a fire pit. It overlooked the large wadi and expanse of desert that would be our Egypt several hours late.

While we unpacked, there was much dressing up to be had- we tried on gallabiyot, head scarves, practiced our instruments, played around, passed out Hagadas and then packed up the wine before heading out on our journey. Amir and Karen had this planned out to a T. Everyone had roles to play (Amos was Moses, Dan was Elohim, Raz was Pharoah and Amit was either Miram or Pharoah’s wife, the rest of us were children of Israel) and everyone had their parts to read. We would trek a little bit, then stop and have a dramatic reading with all of our parts. Then we’d trek some more and do some more dramatic reading. At one point, Dan stood in a bush to represent God speaking to Moses from the burning bush (we elected NOT to set this one on fire…), at another point, Amos pretended to hit a stone and Karen threw water on it. There was singing, dancing, instrument playing, running from Pharoah, I’m pretty sure anyone watching us thought we had all escaped from an insane asylum. But how much did fun we have!? Oh, so much. Finally, we climbed back up the hill to meet with Aharon who asked us who we were (the Children of Israel!), where we had come from (from Egypt), and where we were going (to Jerusalem!). Then it was dinner time- we ate all the usual foods, we sang, we drank our cups of wine, we sang some more, Ori showed us this hysterical video, we drank some more, it was wonderful.

our dining room

our tents and the air conditioned room past them

me and Amir

our living room area

nieces and uncles

mom and daughters

the whole crew!

trekking through the desert

one of our many stops

such long shadows cast

"God" in the burning bush

one of the many cups of wine

ready to go to the Promise Land!

recorder solo

posing with Saba

one-mooned Tatooine

"Why did you make us leave Egypt!?"

ready to party in the Promise Land!

almost there....

Up we go to the Promise Land

Seder!

Lots of singing

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, Mom, Abba, Shiri and I went for a walk around the desert. It was incredible how much plant life there was for a place that got practically no water. The rest of the day was family time- we did a family activity led by Amir that forced us to work together (and learn that the Yadlin family has a lot of leaders and not many followers), we relaxed and took naps, listened to an international relations lecture/discussion led by Amos, and I actually got some homework done, which was unexpected. I just loved how we were able to spend so much time together as a family, well into the night.

The nineteen-hour travel day to Tel Aviv and the twenty-eight hour travel day home from Israel was totally worth these three days. I’m so lucky that I was able to go!